TO GRAHAMY'S HOUSE WE GO

Graham Lambkin

Amateur Doubles LP

Kye 2011

What pray tell is the sound of one man, one woman and one child listenin, you might ask? On this, the latest missive from the Lambkin camp, tis Graham and the clan, two classic platters uh fronch prog circa '75/'76 CE, and a Honda (also CE, I reckon). No, this ain't Graham runnin over sonny's big wheel while Richie Pinhas stirs a cocktail, but it do crunch & whimper just the same. Amateur Doubles continues your boy's streak of appropriated musics and environs a la Salmon Run, but I pegged Graham for a channel surfer back in the Tart epoch. You won't hear no Spanish lady counting for long dead operatives, but you will here the gentle embrace of Dutchess County innersections. And, of course, ya can count on all the time benders and detunes Poughkeepsie traffic surely inspires. Ok look see, it's hard to doll up a thing that sounds like itself, but I pegged Graham for that, too, a way's back. (It's a compliment, sure as God's holy!) What I can't figure is why nobody's chatted up the familial aspect here. We're all use-ta hearin Pole and Grancher holed up in our headphone trenches, but how many of us ever let em out of the house a spell? Blow the dust off, ya know? C'mon, they're family, right? Let em live a little! Some Amish among us is afraid just ta press the play button!  What, contempo plunderers is just supposed ta chip away at the garbage and leave the good shit on the shelf? 

Ask me, this shouldn't seem like sucha brave ride to Stop & Shop (though I sometimes had to belt a few just the same, but I were pushin carts), but it is. Which is why I'm closin this FYC year with another pat on Kye's back. Good hunting, my dear bothers! Oh wait, they've got a few. And you thought I wudn't gonna hook it up this holiday season.

LET YOUR DIGITS DUE THE WALKING - E.S./I.S. put out a tape

E.S./I.S.

I Saw You Sister, Stand in the Effulgence cassette

Digitalis Industries 2011

Spose we're off on a synth kick lately, though I've yet to belch about it, ta be frank. E.S./I.S. (I'm tired of writing that already) seem about as in-bed (or Bed-In if you like) with the Digitalis folks as your briefs are your short-n-curlies. I know, it sounds like I'm about to start slaying them, but hitch high that elastic, Seymour, this is allll right by me--though, in all fairness, the title made me think one of these sods has a wimple somewhere in the closet. No matter. These crusty sundress-wearers elude all the gripe-y territories usually found in the Digitalis canon. Kissin cousins might be Luc Marianni's Souvenirs du Futur and Vangelis's Invisible Connections, in their mutual geeky mean-muggin & flimsy stasis. God's truth: the moments come when this is exactly what ya wanna hear.

I know this is a pygmy of a review, but I'm really just tryin to avoid havin ta write their name again. Or I start thinkin bout the title and suddenly wanna croak. But no! Don't mind me. The day I shit the bed, I will not comment on the wallpaper.

Looking ahead for more of the same, kids! Best thing I've heard from this label in maybe years.

GO

BLANKSGIVING AHOY: An amuse bouche before the feasties and the beasties

Oneohtrix Point Never

Replica LP 2011

Software/Mexican Summer

I ain’t yet put my eyebrows down from Returnal, and here comes another full one from Mr. Lopatin, here channelin all sortsa mid-80s local TV creepouts to outstanding effect. Kinda great how your boy just about chalks the line between Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score for Royal Space Force (the less Mickey Mousey bits, anyhoo) and that Two Daughters record, if you can snort such a bump. Less grim than the latter and definitely less cheesy than the former, but a spot on the shelf he’s nonetheless cleaned off. I also hear the alleged DJ Screw binges a lot more here than befo’, though all this gum-waving don’t do the business like this. And If ya think ya needsa Brittanica-scale recall of synth gear to enjoy these sides, I advise you to put yer RAM to better use. That’s just ain’t the key, pally!

Get yer musicks

PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY

I'm really not kidding.


http://melchiorfund.blogspot.com/

POTLUCK AT MY PLACE! (DON'T BRAISE THE MANDOLIN!)

Village of Spaces

Alchemy and Trust CD/LP

Corleone 2011

Whatsa friendly fool like this doin climbin my staircase? Get behind me, pretty! Honest to you, I can't recollect the last time such an autumnal tumble of leafy itch and scratch came over for some mead with the likes of me. These days, my heart pumps about as warm n sweet as a crushed crab apple, specially when it come to the work of sweatered and Sauconied faux-crackers like these folks.

Though, don't misapprehend: I done-sensed the creek-drunk waiver of Caethua not 5 steps in and I was right and all was better for it. Village of Spaces is, I take it, the Uke of Spaces Corners wearin another walk-in, and she's part. I spose Frederick Wiseman was right about Belfast, ME: ain't nothin to do but count the seagulls and freeze to death, so it makes sense they'd team up. Though, I don't know who's mum ponied for the trek to vibe with Hurley on that other coast. Road trip, brah! Much as I dig this (after-dinner-outside-hemp-bracelet-sweat-ring that it is), I worry the lost, trespassin Bozo Texino quality of, say, 06's So Far on the Way might near blink out by same time next year. You can still catch the quease and moan treatment on "Buoy Gong" and in the slightly listing harmonies throughout, but that's the rub, darlin: slightly.

Oh well, I'm just pickin nits to keep my finger out my nose. These are dire days for all of us. This is damn good! Maybe somebody'll get a new Volvo station wagon outta this goat rodeo. Well, a new old one.

ARCHIVAL SMUDGES: The Lost Fuck You Counselor Years

Dwarr - Starting Over, private press 1984
(Figgered I'd toss this one into yer lap, seein as Dwarr's follow-up just got reished by Yoga/Drag City sometime ago. Twas of the times at the time. But, you know, wine ain't gettin any colder. -Ed.)


Yikes! This is a goddamn goose chase. For some reason, this lp gets dunce-capped with the abysmal underground doom metal of the 80s, when this is really just super-moody borderline chamber-prog-folk. Yeah, Duane sings like Ozzy on a narco bender and there's the occasional Birmingham d-drop, but this has way more in common (albeit probably by stumbles) with Stan Hubbs covering Van der Graaf Generator. Do as you wish, fellow busriders, but every passenger knows when to ring the bell, ya ask me.

PERMANENT SHOTGUN

Weyes Blood & The Dark Juices
The Outside Room LP
Not Not Fun, 2011

The note left on the hotel window read, “I walk a lonely street.” He could well have been a record collector.

Record sluts like us contribute almost nothing to the arts aside, of course, from financial support in 10 and 20 dollar increments over a lifetime. It still seems like a ghastly descent into the hands of the artists, however much we love our dealers (and want them to love us). And, sure, when you consume at this quantity this urgently there are sure to be corners turned and miles marked. But look at me. I live like a memory junkie—sitting here, tipping back capfuls of Rabarbaro, listening to Lazy Smoke like I’m in some mid-afternoon TLC-produced reenactment of myself; a grim, flaxen-faced imagining of long-blown-out wilderness. In ear years, I feel more like 67 than 27. And when I start stuffing hearing aids in with wax- and dust-clotted fingers, I’ll know the buzz is over and a swamp of hum and crackle is beginning.

So, it is with the shake of a meth-wrinkled hand that I crook a thumb for Weyes Blood and the Dark Juices—though it’s probably more the shake from the initial unease of another Jackie-O Motherfucker alum spinning in my house. (Though, as Richard Belzer once recited, “Junkies will always pick quantity over quality.”—Ed.) This one beats the rap, though there were times I expected Hope Sandoval to hook a black widow nail around the corner and sing back-up. But it all worked out. Queasy waves of the dirty penny stench that emanates from all great heroin music are pooling all ‘round this LP and, for now, that’s all well and good. Hopefully, they’re just like me: shotgun, never steering. Nice to see Not Not Fun branching out into the Desertshore crowd!

ASSUME THE LOTUS POSITION AND COUGH

J. D. Emmanuel
Trance-Formation 1: Ancient Minimal Meditations
(Aguirre Records ZORN14)

Somewhere in the Midwest of the 1980s is a lawn chair beside a card table in a basement, waiting for J.D. Emmanuel, hoping he’ll roll a save or go chaotic neutral; stay a little longer for taco-flavored corn chips and cold grape Nehi; cups his cheeks while his friends put on Bo Hansson, Deuter and Harmonia at the wrong speed; maybe tip back the bottle they found in the cupboard, adjusting the level with water to avoid suspicion; discuss the upgrade to the 20-sided die. But no.

He had to go off to that retreat, where the floors are dressed in thatch rugs and the breeze is free of mildew and Irish Spring, and an old man plays a sweaty flute. To be fair, things didn’t go totally wrong. J.D.’s still J.D. somehow somewhere. I’m just not sure about the crowd he’s running with.

THE FLAMING DRAGONS OF MIDDLE EARTH - The Seed of Contempt

LP on Feeding Tube Records, 2010

Now that all the fogies have squirmed their way into the dirt, no longer body warm nor fire-brained, we can finally have some fun of our own. This LP, shmooshed together from years of home-recordings and rehearsals...
details, details--you know what? Who cares.

Need to know: This is everything great about the timeless combo of youth and volume; when rules are disregarded, not in an attempt to divorce from academic rigor, but because no one can remember them. Or maybe no one knew them to begin with. Isn't that basically what's also great about the entire story of contemporary music?

That being said, you think you know what this sounds like and you are so very wrong. It's much better, much more passionate and much less clever-clever collegiate misfit bong hit bonanza. If the word ever meant anything to begin with, then these kids "shred."

Don Van Vliet is dead. Long live Danny Cruz.

If you don't like this, leave me alone and enjoy what's left of your civilized world.